Body Scissors: A Tom Bethany Mystery - Hardcover

Doolittle, Jerome

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671707523 ISBN 13: 9780671707521

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1990

Synopsis

When Tom Bethany is hired by presidential candidate Dan Markham to investigate the background of J. Alden Kellicott, the man Markham hopes to appoint Secretary of State, Bethany uncovers shocking secrets about the death of Kellicott's daughter

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Reviews

In this realistic, sharply penned mystery, freelance "researcher" Tom Bethany, hired to ferret out potential embarrassments in the life of a Boston Brahmin, turns up the perpetrator of an unspeakable murder. A Vietnam veteran who has made the U.S. Olympic wrestling team, Bethany is asked to perform a routine background check on scholarly Alden Kellicott, who is the likely choice of a presidential hopeful for Secretary of State. Bethany learns the blueblood married into his current station and, early in life, displayed a certain cunning. More intriguing are hints that Kellicott frequented adult bookstores in Boston's "Combat Zone," although the powerful nominee says he had simply been searching for his runaway daughter, Emily, who had turned to drugs and prostitution in her teens and was eventually murdered by her pimp, according to Kellicott and the Boston Public Defender. But Bethany's investigation reveals Emily, neither whore nor drug fiend, was an aspiring artist, and the alleged pimp, whose initials were found sliced into her breasts, turns out to be not at all as expected. Shortly before Kellicott's nomination is to be announced, Bethany turns to extralegal methods in his search for the truth, leading to a riveting, unpredictable resolution. Doolittle's ( The Bombing Officer ) stylized dialogue can wear thin but does not diminish his vividly drawn players.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A riveting political thriller written with an insider's savvy by an author who has been a Washington newspaperman, Carter speech writer, and U.S. Embassy spokesman in Laos. At the same time that he skewers the practitioners of political skullduggery, Doolittle also has written a well-clued mystery that moves smartly to a jolting resolution . . . What began as a routine background check ends with the revelation of an unspeakable crime, followed by gruesome justice meted out in a sauna bath. Doolittle offers a polished performance in his first mystery. The Boston scene is a lively backdrop, the dialogue crackles with fast repartee, and the characters make an assorted and colorful cast ranging from Boston Brahmins and politicians to massage-parlor operators and pimps.

Tom Bethany is a loner who does things his way, which is stubbornly original and makes for good reading . . . Above all, his characters have a psychological heft that keeps them vibrantly alive on the page, makes them interesting and what they do believable . . . His taut writing is wired with explosive charges . . . just about a perfect political thriller.

Tom Bethany, security consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, narrates this commendable first mystery about a wealthy professor hoping to become the next Secretary of State. Hired to research the man's background for any hint of scandal, Bethany can find nothing wrong until he looks into the unsolved murder of the professor's wayward daughter. The more involved he becomes with the case, the more he realizes that the police fumbled their investigation. Bethany, a Vietnam veteran who distrusts government, is a sturdy and methodical--if somewhat unorthodox--protagonist made human by his love for a married woman. Solid procedure, realistic environment, interesting-if-unspectacular plot recommend this to most collections.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tom Bethany is investigating the background of a Harvard professor under consideration for Secretary of State. He is reporting his early results to Phil Jeffers, the manager of the presidential campaign which commissioned the investigation. Tom, who holds Jeffers in contempt, is speaking:

"I've been talking to a few people, Phil. The guy is a compulsive liar and he's paranoid and he's completely amoral. Probably a very smooth borderline sociopath, or maybe not so borderline."

"Hey, we're not looking for Mother Teresa here. We're looking for a secretary of state."

"Well, I just thought you'd be glad to know you're on the right track. Only bad thing I could come up with is he likes dirty books. I got a guy saw him coming out of a dirty bookstore in the Zone."

"So? Jacking off's no crime."

"I guess it depends what you jack off to." And I set right off to the Combat Zone to find out.

. . . The bookstore across the street had no name, unless its name was XXX ADULT BOOKS VIDEOS XXX. The shop window had been painted over so that you couldn't see inside. To the right of the door was a sort of cubicle, raised up so that the enormously fat man sitting in it could overlook the racks. He barely bothered to glance up when I came in. The three or four customers didn't even do that much. Each man pretended he was alone, kept quiet, and minded his own business. Dirty bookstores are the last public place in America where good manners survive. Or almost.

"This ain't a library," the fat man brayed. Even then the customers remained polite, pretending that no one had rudely raised his voice. And in fact the fat man had sounded bored, not angry. Like everybody else, I continued to paw through the picture books. Where I was, they had names like Bottoms Up, and Hershey Highway. Other sections were devoted to cunnilingus, pregnant women, bondage and sadomasochism, overdeveloped mammaries, pedophilia, homosexuality, obese women, biracial couple, and fellatio. There was even a small section that catered to the unweaned, as far as I could tell. Who else would pay twelve bucks to look at breasts dribbling milk?

After I had checked the stock out pretty thoroughly, I went up to the fat man on his enclosed platform. "Got anything with kangaroos?" I asked.

"Kangaroos?"

"Right. With pouches. I like pouches."

"Nah, we don't carry it. I doubt they make it. I never heard of it."

Once again, I was missing connections somehow. When I'm serious, people think I'm trying to be funny. And when I'm trying to be funny, they take it seriously.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671707523
• ISBN 13: 9780671707521
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 229